13.84 cu. ft. (8 record storage boxes) (1 half document box) (13 12x17 boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scrapbooks
Manuscripts
Black-and-white photographs
Place:
China -- History $y Civil War, 1945-1949
Fuzhou Shi (Fujian Sheng, China)
South America
Africa
Canada
Brazil
Date:
1884, 1888, 1899-1965
Descriptive Entry:
These papers document the history of the agrostology section of the Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture (1901-1939), and the Section of
Grasses, United States National Herbarium, United States National Museum (1912-1963) at the time Albert Spear Hitchcock and Mary Agnes Chase worked for the USDA and the USNH,
as well as the scientific endeavors of Hitchcock and Chase. Included are personal papers, which also predate Hitchcock's and Chase's tenure with the USDA and USNH. Records
of the USDA were probably transferred to the Smithsonian when Hitchcock became custodian of the grass section, USNH. These papers include loose incoming and outgoing correspondence
with U.S. and foreign botanists; directors and botanists of herbaria; agrononomists; collectors of botanical specimens; seed laboratories, floral companies; USDA staff members;
Smithsonian Institution staff members; agricultural schools and agricultural experiment stations; colleagues; friends; publishers; and scientific societies, regarding identification,
examination, and reports on plants and grasses; exchange and transfer of specimens, gifts and loans of specimen collections; information regarding plants and grasses for sheep
and other livestock; explorations and botanical collecting expeditions; taxonomy; nomenclature; sick and annual leave; requests for positions with the USDA; recommendations
for colleagues for positions, recommendations for fellowships; recommendations for publication of manuscripts; requests for publications; election to scientific societies;
administrative status of the grass section, USNH (1938), Mary Agnes Chase Fund (1953-1961); feminist movement; pacifism and politics in Europe before and during the Second
World War; political and economic conditions during the Chinese Civil War, especially in Foochow (1949); outgoing letterpress correspondence (1905-1923) concerning the above;
also biographies, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, photographs, and scrapbook.
Historical Note:
Albert Spear Hitchcock, botanist, a distinguished authority on the grasses of the world, was born in Owasso, Michigan, on September 4, 1865. After spending his early
years growing up in Kansas and Nebraska, Hitchcock entered Iowa State Agricultural College, receiving his B.S. in 1884, and an M.S. in 1886. Though influenced by botanists
Charles Edwin Bessey and Herbert Osborn, Hitchcock majored in chemistry and accepted his first position in 1886 as an instructor of chemistry at Iowa State University. During
the summer months, Hitchcock returned to Ames to botanize the region.
In 1889, Hitchcock gave up his chemistry position for a lesser salary in order to work under William Trelease at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, working as
an instructor in the Engelmann School of Botany, Washington University, curator of the herbarium, and librarian at the Botanical Garden. Hitchcock left St. Louis to become
professor of botany at Kansas Agricultural College, 1892-1901; and in 1901 began his association with the United States Department of Agriculture as an assistant agrostologist
under Frank Lamson-Scribner. The association was to last until Hitchcock's death in 1935.
Until 1905, most of Hitchcock's work at the USDA was in the economic field of grasses. In 1905 he changed places with Charles Vancouver Piper and took over the grass herbarium
in order to conduct taxonomic studies. Hitchcock became the systematic agrostologist at the USDA, and after 1928 held the title of principal botanist in charge of systematic
agrostology, USDA.
Hitchcock's relationship with the Smithsonian dates back to October 10, 1912, when he was made custodian of grasses, Section of Grasses, Division of Plants, United States
National Museum. Apparently, though the USDA herbarium was transferred to the Smithsonian and merged with the Smithsonian collections in 1896 (see description of the Hunt
Institute collection 105), the grass section of the herbarium remained with the USDA and was not transferred until later, possibly in 1912 when Hitchcock held joint positions
with the USDA and the Smithsonian. Hitchcock remained custodian (without remuneration) of the Section of Grasses until his death. Under Hitchcock, the grass herbarium increased
to become the largest and most complete collection of its kind in the world.
Hitchcock was very much interested in nomenclature and helped educate botanists throughout the world on the advantages of basing specimen names on the type method rather
than on previous authority. His writings and support for the Fourth International Botanical Congress project on nomenclature reunion at Ithaca, New York, in 1926, helped lay
the foundation for an international agreement on nomenclature at the Congress meeting held at Cambridge in 1930.
Hitchcock also originated the idea of preserving a portion of tropical jungle in the canal zone. While he was chairman of the Executive Committee of the Institute for Research
in Tropical America, Barro Colorado Island was made into a permanent preserve. (See STRI records, Record Units 134 and 135, for a history of the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute.)
Hitchcock traveled widely collecting botanical specimens, including the entire United States, most of Latin America, and parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe. In 1929 he was
the botanist representative from the United States at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held in South Africa.
Among Hitchcock's 250 articles and books, his major works consisted of studies on the grasses of the United States. Included in his works are, Genera of Grasses of the
United States; Manual of Farm Grasses; Manual of Grasses of the United States; Methods of Descriptive Systematic Botany; and Text-Book of Grasses.
Hitchcock received an Sc.D. from Iowa State College in 1920, and in 1934 he was awarded an honorary D.Sc. degree from Kansas State College.
Feminist and botanist Mary Agnes Chase, considered "one of the world's outstanding agrostologists and preeminent among American students in this field," by the Botanical
Society of America upon presentation of her Certificate of Merit in 1956, was born in Iroquois County, Illinois, on April 20, 1869. Educated in the public and private schools
of Chicago, Chase became interested in botany at an early age, working at night as a proofreader and botanizing during the day. Though Chase took extension course work from
the Lewis Institute and the University of Chicago, the only degree she received was an honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Illinois in 1958.
In 1901, Chase became an assistant in botany at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, working with Charles Frederick Millspaugh and illustrating each species
with line drawings for his article, "Plantae Yucatanae." Chase left Chicago in 1903 to become a botanical illustrator for the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington,
D.C. Working beyond office hours, Chase spent her time on the collections of the grass herbarium in order to prepare a series of articles on the genera of Paniceae.
From 1907 to 1923, Chase held the position of scientific assistant in systematic agrostology, becoming assistant botanist in 1923 and associate botanist in 1925. Upon the
death of Albert Spear Hitchcock, Chase became senior botanist in charge of systematic agrostology in 1936, and at the same time, became custodian of the Section of Grasses,
Division of Plants, United States National Museum. She retired from the USDA in 1939, retaining her position as custodian for the grass section in the USNM. When the Division
of Plants reorganized in 1947, becoming the Department of Botany, the Section of Grasses became the Division of Grasses, with Jason Richard Swallen becoming assistant curator
and then curator of the Division. Chase was made a research associate in the Department, but still, it appears, retained a position as honorary custodian of the grass herbarium.
In 1959, Chase was made an Honorary Fellow of the Smithsonian, the eighth fellow in the history of the Institution. Among Chase's publications, her important works are
First Book of Grasses; a revision of the Manual of Grasses of the United States; and a three-volume index to grass species that contains information from approximately
80,000 index cards. This last undertaking was published in 1962. Chase died September 24, 1963.
